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EX-OFFICER GUILTY IN CHOKING DEATH

Former Police Officer Francis X. Livoti, who was accused in the 1994 death of a Bronx man that ignited a passionate debate in New York City about police brutality, was convicted yesterday in Federal court of violating the man's civil rights. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

The jury deliberated in Federal District Court in Manhattan for just five hours. In the two-week trial, prosecutors raised the specter of a broad police cover-up and accused three police officers of lying on the stand in the aftermath of the choking death of Anthony Baez, 29, who died after a confrontation with the officers outside his family's home. After the jury rendered its verdict, a juror said outside the courtroom that the panel agreed with the prosecution that the officers had lied.

Mary Jo White, the United States Attorney in Manhattan who took on the case after Mr. Livoti was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in state court in 1996, said the verdict ''shows that police officers who commit acts of brutality can be prosecuted and convicted, even, as the Government stated in its summation, when other officers fabricate testimony or cover up the truth.'' She also criticized the Police Department for failing to act quickly to deal with officers who use excessive force.

Late yesterday, Federal authorities said they were continuing to investigate the matter. Ms. White would not elaborate, but the Government's asertions in court that officers lied raises the possibility of Federal perjury charges in connection with the incident, which began in the early morning hours of Dec. 22, 1994. The confrontation with Mr. Baez started when an errantly thrown football hit a police car during a family game.

Mr. Livoti sat without expression as the verdict was announced and left the courtroom without comment. The former officer, who is free on bond, is to be sentenced on Sept. 24 by Judge Shira A. Scheindlin.

His lawyer, Stuart London, said he would appeal, adding: ''I just got off the phone with him. He obviously is empathetic to the family for the loss of their son. But he's not apologizing because he did nothing wrong. That's an important distinction for him.''

Mr. Baez's parents, Iris and Ramon, sat in tears and looked stunned as the verdict was announced. Mr. Livoti, who had an extensive record of police brutality complaints, was dismissed from the force last year after a police disciplinary proceeding found that he had used a prohibited choke hold on Mr. Baez while taking him into custody.

''Justice is done,'' Ramon Baez said outside court. ''It's a message for the police that they cannot come here and lie.''

His wife agreed, saying: ''You can't stand up in court and lie and then go home like nothing happened. These are lives, people's lives you're dealing with.'' The family has also filed a wrongful-death suit against the department.

The jury had voted 10 to 2 as deliberations began late on Thursday, and then quickly reached a consensus by early yesterday afternoon, said one juror, who refused to give his name.

Identifying himself as a 25-year-old Upper West Side resident, the juror said the panel did not believe the three officers who testified for Mr. Livoti in the case.

''All three lied,'' the juror said. ''It wasn't just that they were trying to cover up for Livoti, but for themselves, because if they were witnesses to a crime, they were conspirators in the act.''

In some ways, though, the prosecution's case went beyond the officers at the scene and raised larger questions of whether the Police Department is institutionally reluctant to punish abusive officers and those who cover up for them.

In her comments after the verdict, Ms. White was critical of the Police Department, saying that the case ''should remind us that police officers who have a history of using excessive force must be dealt with before, and not after, tragedy strikes.''

Records show that Mr. Livoti had accumulated nine police brutality complaints before the 1994 death of Mr. Baez, yet senior police officials rejected a recommendation by his commander that he be transferred to a clerical job or a less stressful precinct, in part because he was a police union delegate and was protected by connections high up in the chain of command.

Prosecutors said in court that Mr. Livoti's fellow officers on the scene, before ever speaking with investigators, coordinated their testimony in meetings in the parking lot of the 46th Precinct station house, and with their lawyers at police union headquarters.

Marilyn Mode, the Deputy Police Commissioner for public information, said the Internal Affairs Division would work closely with the Federal Government to investigate ''any allegations of police perjury or collusion.''

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At his daily news conference, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, speaking from the lawn of Gracie Mansion, said the verdict ''underscores the wisdom of the Commissioner's decision of about a year ago in dismissing Officer Livoti even though he had been acquitted'' on the state charges.

''It brings some degree of justice to a case that for some reason in the state court system didn't work out the way that at least many people, including me, thought it should have,'' the Mayor said.

He added that although the conviction could in no way compensate for the death of Mr. Baez, ''sometimes when a just result is achieved, it brings some degree of peace.''

To prove the Federal civil rights violation, three prosecutors -- Mark F. Pomerantz, Andrew S. Dember and Serene K. Nakano -- had to show only that Mr. Livoti, in his capacity as a police officer, injured Mr. Baez intentionally. ''This is not a murder case,'' Mr. Pomerantz told the jury at the start, signaling the critical difference in focus from the state prosecution, in which Mr. Livoti was acquitted.

Judge Scheindlin also allowed the jury to hear about an earlier incident of brutality in which Mr. Baez was accused of choking another suspect -- an allegation he denies -- to prove that the assault on Mr. Baez was neither accidental nor inadvertent. In the 1996 trial in the Bronx, prosecutors were not allowed to present evidence of previous incidents of brutality.

Mr. Livoti and the Police Department still face a $45 million wrongful death suit filed by the Baez family, which is likely to focus even more closely on the reasons senior police officials allowed Officer Livoti to stay on patrol so long, despite the long record of complaints, said a lawyer for the family, Susan M. Karten.

Mayor Giuliani, asked about lawsuits in the case, said the matter is in the hands of the Corporation Counsel and that he would remain out of it for now. ''The Corporation Counsel should handle it,'' the Mayor said. ''And I'm sure he will try to work out the best result for everyone.''

The larger questions about the Police Department, though, were not the focus of the 12 jurors who convicted Mr. Livoti yesterday.

The one juror who spoke after court said ''the evidence was too strong against him.''

The juror said that one of the most persuasive pieces of testimony came from a doctor, Kim Jaggers, who treated the dying Mr. Baez in the emergency room at Union Hospital in the Bronx. Although Mr. London argued to the jury that no Baez family members interviewed by the police in the immediate aftermath of the confrontation described Officer Livoti's choking Mr. Baez, Dr. Jaggers said a Baez family member had described his being choked to her..

The juror also said that the testimony of the police witnesses, Sgt. William Monahan and Officers Anthony Farnan and Mario Erotokritou, ''was too inconsistent'' to be credible.

As Mr. and Mrs. Baez returned to their Bronx home yesterday, the scene was in contrast to the days after the 1996 acquittal of Mr. Livoti, which prompted angry protests.

The Baez home, depicted on a map that sat in the courtroom throughout much of the trial, remains alive with memories of Anthony. There are newspaper clippings about his case plastered on the kitchen walls, along with hundreds of signatures on signs from well wishers and a six-foot-long banner that proclaims, ''We are standing with you.''

His sister, Elizabeth Baez, said: ''I'm stressed. I'm hurt. I miss him a lot.'' Ms. Baez, 37, is a nurse at Albert Einstein Medical Center. ''Now that this is over, this is my brother's triumph.''

She added: ''Now we're going after the cops that perjured themselves. When we were demonstrating, marching from the precinct to the 161st Street Court house, the mayor called us heckling fools. He's the fool for not acknowledging that police brutality exists.''

David Baez, now 21, who was playing touch football with his brother the night of the confrontation, in which David was also arrested, asked for a marker as he put up a sign on the fence in front of the house. He wrote on a piece of cardboard, ''Livoti Guilty At Last.''

As he mounted the sign on the fence, he said, ''This is the first bit of justice we ever got.''